Dear Parents, Guardians and Friends
We are into the last week of term, and the hubbub of the school production of Les Misérables is quietening to a whisper, so are we taking a moment to pause for breath? Not quite yet; read on!
Presentation assemblies have been taking place all week in which we celebrate all manner of achievements and experiences. Parents, do ask your child whether they have received a certificate for anything, and whether this is something they would like to aim for next term.
Giving a further opportunity to get involved, Ms Hayes and the Science Department have been judging entries to the interhouse science competition. This follows on from British Science Week 2025 which had the themes of adaptation and change. Some of the winning research projects can be seen below.
Year 7 Adaptation winner
Year 7 Change winner
Year 8 Change winner
Year 12 Change winner
The relevance of science to everyday life was underlined this week for Year 11. Mrs Hornblow, Head of PSHE, writes,
“On Monday morning, we welcomed Samina from Sakoon through Cancer to deliver her annual breast cancer awareness talk. Sakoon through Cancer are a charity who raise awareness and empower women pay attention to their bodies and recognise the signs of breast cancer. The talk gave students the facts and statistics behind breast cancer, and Samina also shared her personal experience with the condition. The students were fantastic and showed such empathy towards Samina. The talk concluded with teaching students to conduct self-examinations – the students particularly enjoyed finding the marble ‘lumps’ in the knitted breasts. Year 11 will be completing a follow-up reflection session with their tutors this week to further discuss breast cancer and the signs to look for.
Thank you to Sakoon through Cancer for the talk, and for raising awareness amongst young women. As a token of our appreciation, we held a Pink Bake Sale in January to raise funds for the charity – we managed to raise £225 which we will be donating to the charity, in addition to the voluntary donations brought in by Year 11.
If you are interested in finding out more about the charity, please see their website – Sakoon Through Cancer.”
Back to the interhouse competitions, and Mr Mosley has dusted off the finest suit in education (where in the world did he find it?) to host the Year 8 geography quiz. The winning House was Broderers with Clothworkers a close second, and Lacemakers in third.
And, hot off the press, I also have news of our Hard-Boiled History competition. Mrs Hagger writes,
“This was our best ever year for entries – it took almost the whole of lunchtime for the Year 13 prefects to deliberate and choose the winners. They were as follows:
Year 7 – Katy, Ceira, Crista and Yolie (Haberdashers) – a royal timeline
Year 8 – Kayleigh (Weavers) – the Beatles’ performance on the Ed Sullivan show, the start of the “British invasion” into American music charts
Year 9 – Alara (Weavers) – Hitler’s death (bit dark, but very clever historical references throughout!)
Each winner has won an eggcellent and eggsclusive prize (an Easter egg), as well as House points.”
We are always delighted to hear what students have been up to outside of school. For example, Araya in Year 10 took part in an international judo competition in Antwerp. With judoka from over twenty nations taking part, Araya fought her way through to a bronze medal for club and country – one of only two GB medal winners in the tournament.
If you would like to share with us any of your child’s achievements that we might not otherwise know about, please do use the normal Year team inbox, or – even better – encourage her to talk to her form tutor or Head of Year.
And so we look towards the end of term and our Easter assemblies which will take place on Friday. These will feature the announcement of the final House point standings when the results for the competitions above have all been added the current standings. Who will come out on top this year? All will be revealed…
With Years 10, 11, 12 and 13 all facing exams in the new term, I know there will be plenty of revision going on over the holidays. I hope you all have time to enjoy something of a break over Easter, and experience rest, renewal – and chocolate.
Ben Adams
Assistant Headteacher